Blackbeard superbox, p.105
Blackbeard Superbox, page 105
Three of the pursuing lances vanished from the screen, only to reappear directly in front of Blackbeard’s path. They swung wide, positioning themselves so all three ships could fire on Blackbeard at once. Moments later the spear jumped in, too. It took its spot above the other three, rolling over to expose a heavy pulse cannon that could fire from several spots along its spine.
“Evasive maneuvers?” Nyb Pim asked.
Tolvern hesitated. Flying right into that formation would be deadly, even if the fire hit Blackbeard along her reinforced deck shields. Tolvern’s plan had been a bluff to force the lances to charge in behind while she swept past Sentinel 3’s hidden position. If Li’s forces opened up with their armaments, a good fraction of the Apex warships would be annihilated before the rest of them could respond. But at this point, she’d never reach the station.
Another hunter-killer pack jumped into place right in front of the first. Dismayed, Tolvern thought that this was an escalation of the firepower arrayed against her, but the positioning was odd. Why jump in front? Why not above or below to double the strength positioned against the Albion warship? Or even jump in along the flanks, to herd Blackbeard toward the waiting enemies?
“What do we do, Cap’n?” Capp asked desperately.
“Forward guns!” Tolvern cried. “No evasive maneuvers. Take us right at them.”
There was a lot of hard swallowing at this, but no argument as everyone moved to execute the captain’s orders. The gunnery fired missiles and torpedoes as a side dish to the cannon fire. Countermeasures spewed out the back of the ship, clumps of fifty or a hundred tiny bomblets dropped behind like a fleeing octopus squirting ink. More lances had given chase, and now fought through this impromptu minefield.
The enemy ahead opened fire. The bridge shuddered. The computer chimed in helpfully to warn of shield damage. There wasn’t much leeway for the battered, patched-up navy cruiser, and the alarming numbers Jane shared sounded like damage reports from the end of a battle, not its beginning.
Blackbeard swung down at the last minute like a diving whale. She rolled as she did, and let off a blast from the main batteries, followed by a pair of missiles. It was such an obvious evasive maneuver that the enemy should have had no problems avoiding all of the cannon fire as well as immediately giving pursuit.
Instead, the lances scattered. One group ducked away, and the other took the brunt of Blackbeard’s broadside. Cannon fire tore one of them in two, and another took a blow to the engines and limped away, pursued by one of the missiles, which locked onto its heat signature.
A cheer went up from the bridge as Blackbeard slipped through the net. They’d bought a few more minutes, that was all, and the enemy was already recovering as Tolvern ordered them to swing around and approach the hidden battle station from another angle.
“How did you do that?” Smythe asked from the tech console. “That was a maneuver worthy of James Drake. Only I never thought it would work.”
“There’s something wrong with their fleet,” she said. “They’re in disarray.”
Capp stared at her. “Yes, but how did you know?” The first mate sounded even more awed than Smythe.
“It takes a flawed command structure to recognize one. We had to fight mutineers and seize control of Commander Li’s battle station just to get our ship repaired. He’s so well hidden that I’ll bet there are people on Sentinel 3 even now who are trying to persuade him to let us dangle in the wind and fight Apex on our own.”
Not to mention the away pod that squirted free just as Blackbeard was going into battle. By now Apex would have captured the pod. Megat and Djikstra were either dead or wishing they were dead.
Understanding dawned on a few faces, but the Hroom were literal minded, and Nyb Pim looked up from the nav computer to study her. “I still do not understand, Captain.”
“That second pack jumped in badly,” Tolvern said. “Maybe it was a mistake, maybe they never meant to come in so close. But then they didn’t get out of the way. Instead, it looked like they were trying to fight us first. Steal the glory in what looked like an easy battle. We took advantage of their disarray.”
Capp pointed at the viewscreen. “All that’s fine, but what are we gonna do about that?”
The lances were accelerating, and it looked like they were going to jump again. Tolvern’s maneuver had carried Blackbeard far away from the planet’s icy ring and the battle station’s powerful guns. Tolvern needed to buy a few more minutes. She could change direction, but Apex proved adept at anticipating course corrections and might very well jump in front of her again.
“Do you have that randomized evasive maneuver?” she asked Nyb Pim. “Execute it now.”
This produced a zig-zag pattern that took them twice to starboard, three times up, and once to port. More enemy ships came cruising in from the far orbital position they’d taken around the gas giant. For the moment, Blackbeard was leading them on a merry chase, but the net was closing in again.
Tolvern feinted toward the Kettle, briefly considered risking a dive into the gas giant’s atmosphere, then spotted a gap back toward the ring. Nyb Pim confirmed with the nav computer that they could reach the last known position of the sentinel battle station before they were caught. He’d better be right. Half the enemy fleet was closing fast, now approaching from all sides. Three hunter-killer packs looked ready to jump in for closer combat.
“Okay, Li,” Tolvern said as Blackbeard attempted to repeat its run up along the inside of the planet’s icy ring. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Commander Li had taken her on a tour of the battle station before her departure to show her his weapon systems. Chief among them was the eliminon battery. It had seemed so simple that Tolvern had almost laughed it off. Technologically, it was a marvel, true, but how would it possibly work as a weapon of war? The other armaments were more impressive at first glance, especially the plasma ejector. She’d already seen the ejector in action and was itching to get her hands on it so she could carry it back to the Admiralty.
But the more she thought about the eliminon battery, the more genius it seemed. Expose the enemy’s weakness and hammer it. Blackbeard would be caught as well, but Li assured her the humans would survive.
What about Hroom? Would they survive, too? Sure, Li had said. Of course they would. Well, probably.
Tolvern cast a glance at Nyb Pim. She’d explained the risks to him, asked him to pass them along to the other three Hroom in the crew. The pilot did not seem overly concerned. Compared to the rather obvious risk of having your warship explode under enemy fire, or having giant birds peck out your guts with their beaks, the hypothetical risk of the eliminon battery was easy to handle.
“We’re coming along the inside of the ring now,” Nyb Pim said.
“Take us past the station. Smythe, turn on the active sensors when we cross its path. I want confirmation our friends are still there.”
“We’ll have to bring them online now,” Smythe said. “If the buzzards see us looking, they’ll know we don’t dare communicate directly with the station.”
“This calls for some deception,” she said. “Scan the system. Make it look like we’re searching for those supposed reinforcements. We can take a peek at Singapore while we’re at it.”
“Aye, that’s a good idea.” A few seconds passed, then Smythe exclaimed, “Captain! It’s real. They’re really here!”
Smythe’s scans had turned up something else. There, on the viewscreen, was Blackbeard’s salvation.
Chapter Four
Tolvern’s first emotion was elation. Smythe’s scan had revealed a Royal Navy task force. More than that, half the firepower of the fleet: the battleship Dreadnought and an escort of four heavy cruisers, nine torpedo boats, and a dozen corvettes, missile frigates, and destroyers.
Drake, you crafty bastard. You were coming all along.
It was that subspace message he’d sent. She’d misread it, thought he was trying to fool Apex into thinking he was on his way with reinforcements. But it was a mind game on top of a mind game, and it had fooled Tolvern, too.
“Bring up a map of the system,” she ordered.
Smythe obeyed, and her hopes deflated.
His mouth formed a thin line. “Thirty-seven hours, sir.”
“Thirty-seven.” Her voice sounded hollow in her ears.
Dreadnought alone might have turned the battle. Tolvern had gone up against the monstrous ship in the Third Battle of Barsa. Even when the fight had turned against the enemy, Dreadnought had seemed invincible, taking blow after blow. Her guns blasted ships out of the sky and were on the verge of annihilating Blackbeard as well when Drake’s old friend and confidant, Captain Rutherford, rammed his ship into Dreadnought’s upper decks. There was nothing left of Rutherford or his cruiser after he hit, but the blow had disabled the battleship and allowed it to be captured.
Tolvern was sure the arriving fleet, coupled with Drake’s brilliant mind, would help her fight off Apex and deliver a blow that would make the aliens think twice about attacking Albion again. If only Drake’s forces weren’t thirty-seven hours from the action.
The viewscreen shifted. “Here’s Sentinel 3,” Smythe said.
The battle station was a black smear against the icy ring that curved up and away from them. They were within the protective range of its guns already.
“Bring us about,” Tolvern ordered. “It’s our turn to deliver the pain.”
She braced herself as the ship made a violent maneuver. Time to find out if Barker’s repairs would hold, or if they’d be smeared like bloody jam against the far wall. The ship shuddered as Capp and Nyb Pim hooked them back around, but held.
Blackbeard sliced through the icy ring. Broad, but extremely thin, the ring buffeted the hull with ice particles. The ship shuddered again—that was the engine reversing thrust, not the ice—and swung wide to present her main guns. Lances sliced toward them, their energy weapons pulsing fire.
Tolvern called the gunnery. “Give the buzzards a broadside.”
Fifty tons of hot metal exploded into space. Missiles chased after the cannon fire, and slower but deadly Hunter-IIs followed behind. The leading two lances jumped away, as if they’d been expecting this. Another performed evasive maneuvers, but took hits along its flank. It fled the battlefield, chased relentlessly by one of the torpedoes.
That still left roughly a dozen enemy ships targeting them. They came in from every side, and the ship began to take damage. Blackbeard returned fire, letting loose with everything she had, as if it were a cornered animal ready to fight to the death. She couldn’t stand and slug it out; only moments now, and it would be over.
Sentinel 3 appeared. There was no warming up, no experimental salvo from the battle station. It hurtled masses of missiles and bombs, and the plasma ejector fired thousands of green globules. Lances and spears fled this way and that to flee the attack. The globules caught one of the lances, affixed to the skin, and expanded to engulf the enemy. The enemy ship exploded in a fiery death. Another took bomb damage and raced in a straight line away from the battle, seemingly unable to change course.
The other lances jumped. One moment, Blackbeard was about to be overwhelmed by the energy weapons tearing at its damaged shields, and the next it was pulling in next to the Singaporean battle station, largely unharmed. The enemy ships reappeared a few million miles away.
“That’ll show ’em,” Capp said grimly. “Mess with us and they’ll get a bloody nose. Come back for more and we’ll settle their hash for good.”
There was more bluster than reality in the first mate’s words. They all knew the grim reality of the situation.
At first glance it seemed that they’d won a quick and satisfying victory, held their ground and driven away the enemy. Blackbeard had destroyed an enemy ship, and the battle station had destroyed a second. Three others had taken significant damage. Against this, Blackbeard’s shields had taken a few hits, but they’d also bought time to continue their essential repairs.
Unfortunately, that still left the bulk of the enemy’s fifty-six-ship fleet intact. Among them was the harvester ship, which had yet to engage. The battle station had been revealed, and could not easily hide itself again, and Blackbeard was still unable to withstand a single sustained assault with her weakened shields.
There was one other small victory gained, Tolvern realized as she studied the looming enemy fleet regrouping beyond the Kettle’s outer moons. The enemy ranks were not unified. It was once again evident in the jostling. They seemed to be forming two ranks, one organized behind the harvester ship—this force numbered about forty ships in all—and a second, smaller force comprising three of the hunter-killer packs.
“They’re starting to move,” Smythe said. “Not in this direction, though.”
“Gathering speed, that’s all,” Tolvern said. “They’ll jump right in now that they know we’re stuck next to the sentinel’s guns.”
She got on the com to the gunnery. “You’re catching all this?” she asked.
“Aye, Captain,” Barker said. “All batteries loaded and ready to go. If they jump, we’ll be ready for them.”
“What about torpedoes and missiles? Are they holding up?”
“Missiles are fine—no shortage there. We’ve got one more volley with the Hunter-IIs, and then we’ll be down to the older models. But the way I figure, there’s no sense in saving them for tomorrow, eh?”
“Actually, I want you to hold onto the Hunter-IIs. Don’t waste the good stuff—I need it for the next engagement.”
Barker grunted. “We don’t shoot everything we’ve got, there won’t be a next engagement.”
“It’s time for our friends to show their hand.”
“The eliminon battery?” he asked.
“Right. After that, we’ll break out the Hunter-IIs, but not before.”
“Understood. Well, let’s pray the damn thing works. If not, those torpedoes will never make it out of the tubes.”
“Stay on your toes. Expect surprises.” She ended the call, turned to Capp, and told the first mate to pass the message throughout the ship: brace for the eliminon battery.
Tolvern glanced at the screen. The enemy ships were ready to jump back into the attack. Only moments now. If she was right, they’d arrive en masse.
The crew on the bridge stayed busy: Capp, speaking with engineering about power requirements for the engines and the lasers, Lomelí, hard at work at the defense grid computer, working on countermeasures, Nyb Pim, calculating where the enemy would appear, and Smythe, running scans.
“Lomelí,” Tolvern said, “tell Li we’re ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
Before Blackbeard had pulled away from the battle station, Tolvern and Li had worked out a few simple signals. They had to assume Apex could intercept any communications, and couldn’t risk sending direct transmissions, but the warship captain and the base commander needed a way to pass information. A series of one-time only messages.
Lomelí sent one of these messages now, starting with chaff fired from the rear. It flashed on Tolvern’s console, looking like hundreds of small bombs or exploding pieces of debris designed to thwart enemy ordnance. Exactly four point five seconds later, Lomelí launched chaff from the bow.
To the enemy, it would look like Blackbeard was expecting an immediate attack—which she was—but the reason and timing of the chaff meant something else. A signal to Li to fire up the eliminon battery.
“Smythe,” Tolvern said, “bring down the gravity.”
He hit a button, and suddenly they were all floating. Belatedly, she grabbed for the restraints and got herself clamped in. The others had strapped themselves down already.
Normally, the loss of artificial gravity was serious business. It not only kept you walking around in one gravity, as your planet-adapted body demanded, but the artificial gravity coordinated with the inertia engine to keep you from splattering against the wall or ceiling every time the ship pulled a violent maneuver. Blackbeard had come to a complete halt a few hundred miles from the sentinel battle station. It was a sitting duck, as the old saying had it, but sitting still was the only thing that would keep them alive once the eliminon battery fired up.
Assuming the thing even works.
Who really knew? It might fail to operate at all, for one thing. Even Li admitted that Sentinel 3 had never used it in battle. And if it had been used—by one of the other sentinels, for example—Apex might have since designed ways to defeat it.
The first two hunter-killer packs jumped, and three more packs jumped moments later. Twenty-five Apex ships in all. This was the entirety of the smaller force Tolvern had identified earlier. No ships from the larger force had jumped. Interesting.
The bridge was quiet as they waited for the ships to reappear. Tolvern’s arms floated above her armrests, and she had the sudden impression that she was upside down, that the entire universe had flipped over, that all her life she’d been walking on the ceiling and looking up at the floor.
The enemy ships reappeared. Clusters of lances to port, starboard, below and above. And the heavier spears closing in from the front and rear.
Blackbeard fired her main guns. She rolled, and people on the bridge cried out as they were spun around like clothes in a dryer. She fired again. Weapons discharged in all directions. Everything except torpedoes. Those were held in reserve.
Tolvern felt lightheaded as the ship settled, and now she felt improbably that she was lying on her side, that the universe had shifted sideways.
“Come on, Li!” she shouted in frustration as enemy fire laid into them.
Blackbeard was shuddering, emergency lights flashing all over the place. Jane warned ominously of failing systems and dying shields. Where the devil was that eliminon battery?
Li had to have seen the signal. It was too obvious, and it was exactly what they’d discussed. A burst of chaff, a pause of exactly four point five seconds, and then another burst. He’d warned her to have the artificial gravity turned off. But nothing had happened. It must have failed.
